Reconciliation
by Abrae
Summary: Some things take a lifetime to accept. A rewriting of my story "By Any Other Name," now with a bit more content, more Sherlock, and a completely different (happy) ending.


_Hong Kong, July 1994_

Another sunny, steamy day.

John's been leaning against the rusty, paint-chipped bus stop post for nearly fifteen minutes now, his t-shirt soaked through with sweat, but Anthony's long since given up and retreated to squat against a concrete wall only just covered by a sliver of shade. The air is pungent with the sickening smell of durian; any stronger and it would be overwhelming.

John checks his watch for the twelfth time, then scans the road again, using his shirt to wipe the sweat from his forehead as he looks. A creaky truck covered in striped plastic tarp rattles past, and when the young men riding in the back spy the two fifteen year-old _gweilo_, they shout out, "_Diu lei lo mo_!" and then laugh together.

John frowns and turns away; he knows what the words mean (though he thinks maybe Mum and Dad wouldn't), and he's seen enough of the way things work here - sunburnt housewives with leathery skin ordering elderly Chinese men about - not to begrudge them. But it doesn't soften their sting.

He looks up the road once more and, finding it utterly empty of transport, sighs and trudges over to the shade where Anthony sits fanning himself with a film pamphlet snagged from the theatre. He crouches next to the other boy (he's been trying to perfect that flat-footed squat the Chinese men do, but he can't quite get his heels on the ground) and snatches the paper from his hands.

"Prat," Anthony grumbles as John quickly fans his face, then hands it back. When his legs begin to ache, he settles on the ground and leans back, carefully resting his head against the baking concrete, his forearms propped on bent knees. They sit this way for several minutes, Anthony leaning forward, lost in his thoughts, and John lost in the sandy blond of Anthony's hair.

Then, as though sensing John's gaze, Anthony turns quickly to face him.

John averts his eyes, but it's too late. Anthony's narrow slightly and John turns his face away, thankful that the blush rising to his cheeks is masked under skin already reddened by the sun.

"Did you hear about Richardson?" Anthony asks after a moment.

"The corporal?" John asks quietly, knowing the answer and hearing the real question beneath the words. "What about him?"

"My Dad says he's a bloody shirt lifter, that's what," Anthony says with a shake of his head. "Got caught with one of the Chinese drivers."

John keeps his eyes trained on the road, searching (desperately) for the number six bus.

"'s not normal, y'know," Anthony continues, and John gives a noncommittal hum. His own Dad's been all too clear on the subject (_If anyone talks to you in the loo, John, you punch him in the face and get the hell out of there, understand?_), and he's not about to disagree. It was stupid, he thinks, to get caught looking - and what's a look, anyway? It's not like it means anything.

He turns to Anthony and finds a warning in his eyes, but before he can say anything more, John spies the blue double-decker bus that will return them to Stanley Fort barrelling down the road. John climbs to his feet and unthinkingly holds out his hand to Anthony. The other boy stares at it for a moment, then pointedly rises on his own.

John's hand drops to his side.

He thinks they won't be spending much time together anymore.

_Hong Kong, June 1995_

Their lips touch, and all John can feel is a relief so profound, his knees would buckle if he weren't already sitting down.

As kisses go, it's probably not the best. His lips are dry and hers are a bit lifeless; more peck than passion. But it's different with another person, unexpected and almost daring.

(Safe, in a way that lets him know he's normal for wanting it.)

She pulls away, and he takes a moment to appreciate the sight she makes: eyes closed, a light smile flitting over her lip-glossed mouth, her blonde hair tossing in the humid breeze. He licks his lips and can taste the flavour (strawberry) she's left behind.

"That's nice," she murmurs, opening her eyes. Brown, flecked with bits of gold.

"Mm," he agrees, turning to look out at the dim lights cast by the fishing boats out in the bay. Her hand is warm in his; sweaty, but not clammy, and he gives it a gentle squeeze. The sea salt is heavy in the air tonight. He breathes it in, imprinting it on his memory.

"You're going back, then?" Ellie asks after a moment, and John nods.

"End of term. Tour's up this year, and Dad wants me to take my A-levels back home. You?"

Ellie sighs, gazing out over the water. "I've been here half my life," she says softly. There's a faraway look in her eyes that John can't read. "I'll probably go back for uni, but Mum and Dad'll stay here, I expect. Dunno for how much longer, though."

"Maybe I'll see you there?" John says hopefully. "Back home? It's only a couple more years."

Ellie gives him a sad sort of smile; not pitying, exactly, but imbued with some secret knowledge he can't grasp. A nameless ache blooms in his chest, and he turns his face away so she won't see the twist of his mouth.

"It never works that way," she says. "People always say they'll keep in touch, but… " Ellie shakes her head. "I've even gone to see a friend or two when we've been back on leave. It's never the same."

He nods in resigned agreement, the fringe of his hair falling into his eyes, and Ellie scoots closer on the bench. She leans forward and looks up into his downturned face.

"Doesn't mean it has to end right now, though, does it?" she says with a smile, giving him a soft kiss on the cheek. John turns towards her, and he lifts his hands to her thin shoulders. He likes the feel of them under his fingers - the hard knots of bone and the soft expanse of skin. He tentatively strokes his thumbs over her clavicles, then leans close.

The second kiss is better. They're both getting the hang of it now - a wetter brushing of lips and, there at the end, the taste of something more that has his trousers tightening just a bit. And if it isn't earth-shattering, it's a heady distraction from Typhoon Harry wreaking havoc at home; from all the upheaval of the impending move. From having to start over again.

_Dale Barracks, Chester, December 1999_

As bad as the yelling had got just before Dad was deployed to the Falklands, John thinks this deafening silence might actually be worse. Night after night they sit at the table like bandits at a standoff, each eyeing the others as though to anticipate which will be first to disrupt the tenuous tea-time peace.

John doesn't hate Harry. But he does resent her and the way she's taken their family and smashed it to pieces with her need to be different. To stand out.

He gets it. That this is what she wants; or, at least, what she thinks she wants. And John wants her to be happy, but how serious can it be? It's not like it's real. She's just experimenting, John thinks, but even after she's figured out it's a bloke she's been after all along, all this unbearable silence will still be here, filling the gaps between them.

He sighs and moves a bit of the food on his plate around. A clink and clatter of metal on ceramic. A soft gulp of water traveling down his mother's throat. The soft stab of a fork into pork chops and carrots. A huff of irritation from Harry.

John just keeps his head down.

There's a knock on the door and Harry's eyes light up - in pleasure or perversity, John can't say. Mum looks to the door with a pained expression, then back at Harry with pleading eyes, but Harry - oblivious to everything but herself, as always - jumps to her feet and answers it.

The girl on the other side is tall - not like Harry, who's got the short Watson genes. Her hair is cut short and spiky, and she wears a plain white t-shirt under her denim jacket. A heavily eye-shadowed gaze skirts disinterestedly over Mum and John, then Harry tugs on her jacket to pull her into the bedroom, slamming the door behind them.

Mum sighs, cradling her forehead in her hand, and in that moment, John understands with a rare clarity that nothing is worth this. Not happiness, not 'finding yourself' or whatever it is his sister is doing. Harry would say he's a mummy's boy, and maybe he is. But he hates to see Mum's suffering - that weary look of forfeited dreams that he should be too young to recognise. Were it him, he'd do anything to avoid being the cause of it.

John just wishes Harry were the same.

Mum looks up and her eyes catch John's. He fights the urge to look away.

After a moment, he gives her a tight smile and shrugs. Mum shakes her head and they set to eating again, each pointedly ignoring the muffled squeals of laughter coming from behind Harry's closed door.

_London, December 2002_

"John!"

Mike calls out across the deserted library and John looks up, bleary-eyed, to discover that it's gone dark outside. He sits back in his worn wooden chair and stretches, rolling his neck from side to side, rubbing his eyes. He opens them in time to see Mike drop his backpack on the tabletop and lean against it, arms crossed over his chest.

"Don't you ever take a night off?" Mike asks, pushing his glasses up on his nose. "Especially this close to the hols. It's not right."

"This cardiovascular stuff isn't going to learn itself, you know,' John replies, laying his hand on the open textbook before him. "Not all of us can get it on the first go."

Mike leans over abruptly and closes the book's cover, just missing John's hand as he snatches it away.

"What'd you do that for?" John complains, but Mike just turns to stuff the book into John's canvas bag, snapping it shut and handing it to his friend.

"All work and no play, Johnny-boy," he replies with a grin. "Let's go grab a pint and then get you home, yeah?" Taking up his own backpack, Mike slings it over his shoulder and starts down the aisle, throwing a glance back over his shoulder.

"Come along, then. It'll be fun," he says. John stands, stretches again, and picks up his bag with a deep sigh.

"Where're we going?" he asks as he catches up, and Mike just laughs.

"New place," Mike says. "You'll like it."

A ten-minute walk later and they're pushing past a burly doorman who's busy tossing out a skinny boy with a shock of black curls. They enter to the thunder of a deep bass beat, and John stops dead in his tracks, gawking wide-eyed at the gyrating press of bodies before him.

Normally, when Mike suggests a pint or two, they end up at the pub near John's flat, soberly sipping lager and listening to the one-upmanship of the red-faced regulars. By contrast, this is a sensory smorgasbord that's almost too much - too much heat, too much noise, and far too much touching.

Mike raises an eyebrow as he catches John's eye.

"What did I tell you? Better than those books."

John just stares at him incredulously.

They wind their way through the press of bodies to a far table. It's a bit quieter here - still deafening, but at least they can hold a conversation. Yet, looking out over the crowd, John finds himself completely speechless. He doesn't fit in here, with his corduroy trousers and woollen jumper. Neither does Mike, for that matter, but he seems never to care about such things. It's something John envies, this comfort with himself; John's never felt at home in his body.

"Where'd you hear about this place?" John almost shouts over the din.

"_Time Out_," Mike replies. "Thought we could use a change of scenery."

A weary waitress brings them the beers they've ordered on the way in, and Mike lifts his glass.

"Cheers," he says, taking a swig, and John returns the gesture, settling back to watch the crowd and far happier in the role of observer than he ever would be as participant.

The only dancing he's ever done has been at family weddings; a short boy all overbite and awkward shuffling and leading old biddies about. This is new - alien, really - and his palms sweat a bit as he takes it all in. Firm bodies gyrating together, glitter and shimmer and silky hair, and it's so (_fucking terrifying_) spectacular that he has to look away.

At Mike, nodding beatifically at him across the table, an irritatingly knowing glint in his eyes.

At the bartender, smart in his crisp black shirt and carefully gelled hair. John's heart skips a beat at the sight of long fingers deftly flitting between bottles and glasses, but he ignores it, taking another swig of his beer. Looks away.

At the girls dancing together in their stringy tops and tight skirts. Beautiful, but for a desperate flamboyance that makes John inexplicably nervous. He looks away.

At the dark-haired kid, gangly and a bit spotty, who's managed to get in after all and is now impossibly holding court with cigarette in one hand, a glass of something in the other, and an open-mouthed gaggle of girls listening raptly to whatever it is he's pontificating about. A boyfriend or three, glaring daggers at him from the sidelines.

John lets out an involuntary laugh at the sight, catching the boy's narrow-eyed attention for an arresting moment.

Mike gives him a quizzical look, and John answers, "Nothing." He shakes his head and looks away, washing away his smile with beer.

_London, April 2004_

After years of study made all the more difficult by John's disinterest in learning by the book, he's now nearly at the end of his FY1 year.

He'd thought the hardest part would be A&E, only to find that on-call is much more of a challenge: thirteen-hour shifts and little supervision. Even so, it takes only a few months and comparatively few mistakes to get his footing; the mistakes are manageable, and manage them he does.

John's a bit surprised to find that there's something about the wards that brings his talents to the fore, and he looks forward to those nights when he's running from bed to bed, flipping through charts, making connections and diagnoses, understanding almost intuitively what needs to be done and who needs to be doing it. John may be small, but when he's on the ward he speaks with an authority that makes people stop and pay attention. Something he got from his Dad, he reckons.

It takes even less time to discover that he likes the thrill of risk that comes with a tricky diagnosis; likes the adrenaline rush that accompanies an emergency. They bring him alive in a way he never has been before. They make him something more than the quiet homebody he seems - something interesting. Something… electric.

Tonight, though, is one of the slowest shifts he's had to date.

He puts the finishing touches on some stitches (cooking accident, to judge from the non-stop commentary coming from the bloke's girlfriend), then sends the pair (young, working-class, obviously in lust, if not love) on their way. John quietly gathers up his paperwork and starts to follow down the corridor. When he looks up, he catches them sharing a kiss.

And not just any kiss; this is a good one - too good, it might be said, for public consumption. A press of bodies against a far wall. A bit of tongue, a nip, a growl, and clutching hands.

John reddens and coughs softly into a curled fist. They look up - she in embarrassment, he with a lascivious grin - and John gives them his soon-to-be-patented 'behave, now' look. The boy rolls his eyes and takes the girl by the hand, dragging her out into the night with him.

And John, watching them go, wants what they have. That heedless passion, lips against his own. Skin against warm, welcoming skin, telling him that, for now, he's not alone in the world. John's pushed away the longing for so many years that it's got lost under a sensible face and worn shirts and faded jeans, and he doesn't know how to bring it out into the open. His body sends out no beacon; in the absence of a crisis he's simply plain, obscure John Watson, and there are nights spent alone in his bed when he thinks he may go mad from it.

_London, May 2006_

It's been unseasonably warm for a week.

John stretches a long piece of packaging tape over the seam of the last box, then lowers it carefully to the cardboard, flattening it out over the split. That done, he pauses to take a look around the flat that's been his home for four years. Even though he always looks forward to the novelty of a new place, this is the part of moving on that he hates. The ugly checked Oxfam armchair that had taken up half the lounge is gone, and with it much of the accidental warmth of the room. The walls echo with every step John takes, and he can hear clearly the distant clap of Gareth's feet as they climb the stairs leading to his door.

A day spent in Gareth's company has gone a long way to acclimating him to the other man's presence; but in the fifteen minutes he's been gone to Tesco, John's nervousness has returned.

They've spent the day overwarm and under-dressed, John in a plain white vest and Gareth in nothing but his jeans. John's noticed Gareth casually brushing up against him with slowly increasing frequency, and - he doesn't know, exactly, what he's thinking when he starts responding in kind, leaning just a bit too close to see how much room is left in Gareth's open box; letting his eyes travel over the gently curved plane of Gareth's back. He's free to look (_this time_, a whisper in back of his mind), but there's no reason why he should.

Except… a blind, thoughtless want so overwhelming he can taste it.

The door bangs open unceremoniously and Gareth, a bag of sandwiches and crisps in hand, bursts through with a cheerful, "Here we are." He puts the bag down on the now-cleared kitchen table and reaches in to hand John a cold lager, dripping with condensation.

"Ta," John says. He allows his fingers to brush lightly against Gareth's as he takes it, and Gareth reaches out with his now-empty hand to grasp John's wrist.

"What -" he begins, looking - panicked - up at his friend. But Gareth - whose dark brown hair has copper highlights in the light of the late afternoon sun, whose coffee coloured eyes are gentle as they seek out John's - takes the lager in his other hand and replaces it on the table. John's eyes follow the movement, then travel back up to meet Gareth's. His breath is coming in sudden, shallow pants and, he'd regret this, he would, but Gareth's head tilts and his eyebrows rise in a question, and all John can do is nod after a moment's hesitation, almost imperceptibly.

He expects a lunge - something masculine and aggressive - but Gareth simply lets his hand slide from John's wrist to tangle their fingers together, each soft stroke against John's skin more overwhelming than the last. He dips his head and John, eyes wide, cranes his neck to meet him halfway; their lips brush lightly, and all the world is reduced to this - this touch, this kiss, this moment.

When their mouths part, John murmurs into the scant space between them, "I'm not - I don't -" punctuating his words with a defeated sigh he can feel against Gareth's chest.

"I am," Gareth says, mercifully without condescension. "I do." He tugs at the hand he holds in his own and pulls John across the lounge and into the small bedroom. The furniture is gone, but the mattress remains on the floor; Gareth lowers himself onto its edge, stretching out his legs before him, and John kneels between them on the warm wooden floor.

"I want… " he says. "I want… " he tries again, a little more vehemently this time, then screws his mouth in a tight knot, shaking his head in frustration and looking away to the empty corner of the room.

Gareth reaches forward and places a hand on John's nape, rubbing the short hair he finds there.

"Hey," he says, but John gives another angry shake of his head. Gareth lifts his hand to John's head, stroking his hair. "Hey," he says again, and John lets out another huff, raising his eyes to Gareth's.

"Are you sure?" Gareth asks.

"I don't. I don't know what -" John begins, wanting to explain that there's clearly something wrong with him, to be so _hungry_ yet unable to eat; but Gareth hears a different confession and draws John close, lightly pressing his lips to John's, nipping at them with teeth and tongue. He slowly coaxes them apart, and John finds himself succumbing to sensations that very nearly drown out the high-voltage hum of his doubts. He climbs onto the mattress with Gareth, crawling forward to lie next to him, savouring the feel of the hands that slip under his vest and pull it over his head. The swipe of Gareth's tongue over a nipple brings John down, panting so heavily he can feel it in the numbness of his hands. A nuzzle at his neck, a nibble at his ear, and John is gasping, grasping at Gareth's shoulders, Gareth's arms; and then his hair, as Gareth slides down his body to take John in his mouth.

John knew, but he didn't know how good it would feel, how "good" doesn't even come close to describing the electric shock of mouth on exquisitely sensitive skin, could never explain why he's hoarse and heaving when he comes down Gareth's throat.

And cresting on the wave of his orgasm is the surety that this cannot happen again. It wars with John's wish - no, need - to reciprocate somehow, though (_not ready for that I can't_) maybe with his hand, rather than his mouth. He rolls on his stomach and licks and bites as he's been tutored, and Gareth makes gratifyingly appreciative sounds. John reckons he must not be mucking it up too badly, but when he reaches down to take Gareth's stiff prick in hand, the angle is all wrong, and suddenly John doesn't have the first clue what he's doing. He grips it as he would his own, and after an awkward moment or two, Gareth wraps his own hand around John's to show him the way. Gratitude wars with embarrassment, and both are canceled out by the relief that washes over John when Gareth comes.

The sky is a dusky blue now, the only light in John's bare bedroom that of the streetlights outside. They lie side by side, and when Gareth takes John's hand in his, John turns his head to look at him. Gareth brings John's hand to his lips, and John (lost) blurts out, "We probably shouldn't do this again."

Gareth stills. After a moment, he sits up and reaches over for his pants. They dress together in the dark silence.

_London, October 2010_

It's just begun to rain when Harry arrives at the cafe.

John's been waiting outside for nearly twenty minutes now, the hand wrapped around the handle of his cane tightening as the ache in his leg becomes a sharp pain he can't ignore.

He's almost glad to see her, but one look at her bleary, blood-shot eyes - one whiff of the stale alcohol that clings to her clothes - and his good will withers away.

"Johnny," she says, pre-emptively defeated.

"Harry," he replies, a soft rebuke hiding behind her name. "Glad you could make it."

"Piss off," Harry mutters, but she walks around him to pull the door open, and he doesn't fail to notice that she holds it for him as he shuffles through. They order coffees at the counter; John makes sure to cover his with a plastic lid - he's found out the hard way what happens when he limps with hot coffee in his free hand.

Once they've settled in their seats, Harry removes a mobile phone from the jacket she's draped over the back of her chair and lays it down on the table, sliding it towards John.

"Here," she says. "Don't be such a stranger."

John picks it up, experimentally presses a couple of buttons, then turns it over to find an inscription on the back. His eyes flick back up to Harry's face, but she's pointedly looking away.

"What happened with Clara?" he asks, and Harry shrugs.

"Wasn't working out."

"Wasn't working -" John leans across the table and, with a quick glance around, hisses quietly, "She's not your girlfriend, Harry, she's your wife. You can't just -"

Harry's eyes flash angrily. "Can't what, John? Leave? Didn't seem to bother you when you were the one doing it."

"That's not -" John begins, but Harry's not done.

"I buried him, John Watson, and where the hell were you? Mum's talked about nothing but you since he died. 'Hope Johnny's alright, Harry.' 'Have you heard from Johnny lately, Harry?'" She lets out an explosive sigh. "You just left, you dickhead, and I've had to pick up the pieces."

A small part of John wants to tell her it's about time she did. That it's only fair after the years of arguments and slammed doors she inflicted on them all. It's all true, though, what she says; he did leave and he hasn't been back in years. Calls home from time to time, but he stayed away from his father's funeral, and although he's been back in London for a few weeks now, he has yet to visit the facility where his mother now lives.

He doesn't want her to see him like this.

But there's something about being shot at - being shot - that puts things in perspective, so instead of arguing the point, John simply asks, "How's she doing?"

Harry eyes him warily. "Same as always," she replies.

The minutes pass in silence, the only sound between them soft slurps of their coffee. Then, abruptly, "Did it hurt?"

John lets out a humourless laugh and looks out the window. "Of course it hurt. I was shot."

"What're you going to do now?" Harry asks, and that's the question, isn't it? What can he possibly do? It's not like he can stand for any length of time, and the tremor in his left hand makes even the simplest of everyday tasks that much more difficult.

And it's not just his body. John's never had that cocky confidence that separates the leaders from the led and, bereft of the things that gave some form to his otherwise shapeless sense of self, he has no idea who he even is anymore. John's paid the price for that fleeting sense of purpose and definition that enemy fire had lent him, and it's too high; he's gambled his future and lost.

"No idea," he answers.

Harry snorts indelicately. "You could always get married. Start a family."

John knows she's taking the piss out of him, but her words strike truer than the stray bullet that hit his shoulder, and his eyes drop to the cup in his hand. It's a long-held fantasy of his, starting a family. He'd spent sun-baked afternoons in the too-still shelter of canvas and netting imagining the life he might build once his tour was up. A son and a daughter; a wife - pretty, but not beautiful. She'd be sensible, like his mum. Predictable, and her predictability would give his own life a centre that it's lacked for years.

John lifts his cup and takes one last sip. Then he looks Harry in the eye, the sharp glint in his own a bitter contrast to the tight smile it accompanies.

"Who would have me now?"

_London, February 2011_

It pisses John off, the way people keep mistaking him for Sherlock Holmes's - what? Boyfriend? And he can't even quite say why - only that it feels like an insult, somehow; a joke on them both that neither of them really gets. As utterly incomprehensible as he can be, as arrogant and insulting and bloody posh as he often is, Sherlock is the most interesting person - the most interesting _thing_ - to have happened to John in a long time. He _likes_ Sherlock, more than he's liked anyone in years, and every raised eyebrow, every stage whisper, every snide insinuation makes him feel like a fool for it.

And it's not like Sherlock's... that way, anyhow. Married to his work, he says, and that suits John just fine. Sherlock's preoccupations give John room to breathe, secure in the knowledge that his glances will be never be mistaken for something they're not, that his words will never be misconstrued. It's a freedom he's never once allowed himself in the company of other men.

John's always been a bit on the fastidious side - every cup put away, every shirt hung, hospital corners on the bed - and Sherlock Holmes, a whirling dervish of chaos if ever there was one, seems like the very thing to push him past the point of endurance. But he's got a weakness for Sherlock's detritus - all the mess and the smells, the sound of his violin at three in the morning and even the head in the fridge. It's a constant reminder (a promise) that there's two of them now, where before he'd been just one and so terribly alone. John has no idea what might have become of him had he not met Sherlock; he only knows that his service revolver was loaded when it shouldn't have been, that his bedsit - his world - had been lifeless and grey, that he had been heading nowhere, to do nothing, when he came upon Mike that day. Sherlock's saved his life in all the ways that matter, and though John thinks it might be something to get off with Sarah - or any woman, really, it's been so long - he has a nagging sense that he'll always come when Sherlock calls.

It's something he doesn't examine too closely.

_London, March 2011_

It takes a shower - scalding - to even begin to erase the crawling sensation that lingers just under John's skin hours after Moriarty has gone. Sherlock may see in him a puzzle to be solved, but John's is a visceral disgust that makes him want to retch. It's not just the violation of his person; he's been through that before, and under worse conditions than a neighbourhood pool.

But though John's had a gun pointed at him before, Moriarty's gone one better: he's gotten into John's head. He's hijacked John's voice and made it his own, and no amount of soap or scrubbing will ever get those words out of his mouth. Moriarty made him into a marionette, and the memory of it (_gottle o'gear, gottle o'gear_) sends John into a paroxysm of dry heaves that bows his head even lower under the pelting spray of water.

Eventually, he emerges from the bathroom to find Sherlock standing by the shattered window, peering through the slats that cover it. He gives no indication that John is even there, but as John heads towards the staircase that leads to his bedroom, he hears Sherlock ask quietly, "Are you all right?"

John hesitates. He knows what his answer should be - what it would be, any other night - but the words won't come.

Sherlock turns from the window to look at him. There's an unfamiliar concern in his expression that draws the truth from John despite himself.

"No. But I will be."

Sherlock turns back towards the window, long arms wrapped around his chest, his face hidden from view.

"I'd - I'll understand if you -" he begins, softly, and John interrupts in a voice, his _own_, that brooks no dissent.

"No - no. I'm not going anywhere. That man - Moriarty? He may have been after you, Sherlock, but he's my enemy now."

Sherlock looks back over his shoulder at John, a faint, crooked smile playing on his lips. The ghost of appreciation that lights his eyes warms John through, even as the cold air creeping in from outside chills his damp hair, and they hold each other's gaze for a moment. Then John gives Sherlock a tight nod and turns to go.

Just as he's leaving the room, he hears Sherlock call out, "John. I -" and pauses in the doorway. "I'm sorry," Sherlock says finally, and John looks back, a frown clouding his face.

"For what?"

"I thought - I... doubted you. For just a moment, but I should have known -"

"It's what he wanted you to think," John says. "He used me to get to you." He gives a small tilt of his head. "We'll just have to make sure he can't do it again."

Sherlock's mouth tightens, but he nods stiffly and if there's a sliver of doubt in his eyes where none used to be, John chooses not to see it.

_London, December 2011_

He'd like to hate Irene Adler outright, but she's... formidable. It occurs to John that he wouldn't mind having her on his side in a fight; she turns her opponents' weapons on themselves, and it's a skill that John respects - until he's on the receiving end of it.

He holds his own throughout their strange confrontation, parrying her innuendo with a blunt honesty that seems to keep her off guard. But when she wrests it from him and wields it herself, it takes but one thrust -

_"Yes, you are"_

- to cut to the quick; and John, for whom honesty is less weapon than way of life, is left with little but the tattered remains of his own self-delusion.

He's not gay, never has been, but he can't deny that there's something indefinably intimate between Sherlock and him. Part of it, he's sure, is that Sherlock is unquestionably attractive; it's no great concession for John to admit it. If he's being honest, John supposes there's a part of him that's always thought so - the part that's lingered on the sharp angles of his face, that's felt the shallow breathlessness that comes when Sherlock leans close and commands his attention with the intensity of his gaze.

There's something else as well, though, so close to the surface of their friendship as to be mistaken for it. Warmth, affection, pride - exasperation, irritation, and amusement. With surgical precision, John reflexively isolates the commonality that would bind those things into fatal sentiment - locks it away and never looks at it.

And what remains are only discrete moments that remind John why he stays when Sherlock is being a prat, but which cannot coalesce into anything more.

_Devon, March 2012_

"Is yours a snorer?"

John's answer ("Got any crisps?") isn't an answer at all, but the errant thought that flits through his mind before he gives it (_Sherlock sprawled on his bed_) makes his voice crack in a way that speaks volumes.

The wound that Irene Adler inflicted all those months ago hasn't healed; it's metastasised, insinuating itself into John's imagination to the point that he spends more time pushing away inconvenient thoughts than he does actually thinking. By the end of their last day in Devon - after Sherlock's breakdown and the laboratory and the chemical-soaked copse - the adrenaline coursing through John's body has short-circuited his ability to fight any longer. There's a strange ache lurking just out of view, infinitely more terrifying than the beasts of Baskerville and far less controllable, so when they return to the inn, John gives a curt nod and a perfunctory "I'm knackered" to Sherlock and Lestrade, then beats a hasty retreat to his room, slamming the door behind him.

Dr. Watson is an expert in the art of triage. He's always believed in making the lost causes comfortable, and there is no more lost cause than this _want_ he will not name. He leans back against the door with an audible groan and pulls down his zip - reaches inside his trousers to wrap his hand around his hard length and bring it out into the open, then... _strokes_. His is the too-tight grip of a lonely man, but it sates the hunger that's plagued him for weeks. Just this once, here in this darkened room, he lets the scattered impressions of a year spent with Sherlock come: the iridescence of his eyes, flashing in both ire and excitement; tapered fingers dancing over the strings of his violin; hair so thick you could lose yourself in it, and John wants to, thinks of nothing but burying his fingers in it stroking it pulling it as his foreskin slides over his swollen flesh again and again and again.

In the end, though, it's not these disconnected bits of Sherlock that send John over the edge, but the remembered sound of his gravelly voice confessing friendship like a sin. John comes in his own hand with a soft, hoarse grunt... and when the moment has passed and he's carefully pulled a sheet over those final few memories, he flips on the fluorescent light in the loo and washes his palm of the evidence, never once looking into the mirror.

_London, June 15, 2012_

Nothing.

Nothing will ever be the same again.

* * *

_London, December 2012_

John's not fine, far from it.

The first few months following Sherlock's death pass like the period just after he'd been shot, when the world was ashen and empty and John lost in it. He stays away from the people he's called friends; Greg - Mike - even Molly - they remind him of a life that's died with Sherlock, and he doesn't want to suffer their pity and platitudes. They can't fill the hole he's left, and John doesn't care to watch them try.

Eventually, he starts picking up the pieces of his life, trying to fit them back together only to find that the edges have frayed. Locum work at a new surgery distracts him for hours at a time, a nearly pleasant hum that sees him through the walk back to his flat. But once inside, the silence always encroaches on his equanimity. He looks around and sees not what's there (precious little, in any case), but what's gone. No strange surprises await him in unexpected places; no sounds, but the ones he makes.

And there's an ache for which John has no name skulking just below the surface of his consciousness, haunting him in a way his wound never did. It's a tightening behind his sternum at the smell of some restaurant he's passed. A sickening flutter whenever he looks at the mobile he still carries, though it never chimes these days. He keeps it all hidden away, and if the strangers he encounters mistake the circles under his eyes for a night out with the lads, if they miss the tightness of his jaw and the thinness of his lips when he smiles, all the better.

But inevitably there comes a night when the ache is more a pain that makes him wince, and he knows of only one way to make it go away. It's an indulgence he seldom allows himself, because he's seen, too often and far too close, what it does. But tonight, this near to Christmas, it's the only thing short of a tourniquet that will help to staunch the steady bleed of his inconvenient emotions. John drinks alone - a bottle of Glenfiddich he's had for years - and he's already three sheets to the wind when he climbs into a cab near midnight. Ten minutes later, he's pounding loudly on Harry's door.

"John!" Harry exclaims at the sight of him, unsteady on his feet but still, surprisingly, upright. "Do you know what time it is? What are you doing here?"

"'lo, Harry," John says evenly. "Can I come in?"

Harry grabs his forearm and pulls him inside, catching a whiff of the evening's festivities as he passes her on his way to the lounge.

"Have you been drinking?" she says, and John, falling to the sofa, gives a small snort.

"Bit obvious, isn't it?"

He rests his heavy head on the back of the sofa and closes his eyes with a sigh, rubbing them until the sting subsides. Harry goes into the kitchen to put the kettle on, and when she returns, John clambers upright and removes the mobile from his pocket, placing it on the table between them.

"Here. I've been meaning to return this ever since you and Clara got back together." He looks around the room as though only just realising where he is. "Is she home?"

"Gone to her mum's for the weekend," Harry says, shaking her head. "John - what's going on? You don't drink."

John gives a small, mirthless laugh, not meeting his sister's eyes.

"No, I don't, do I?"

Harry frowns. "What's happened, John?"

And this is as far as he wants this conversation to go; but the price of numbing his ceaseless ache is that the alcohol has loosened his tongue.

"You read the papers."

"What, Sherlock Holmes?" Harry says in surprise, and it's all John can do not to flinch at the name. "I know you were friends, but it's been, what, six months now?"

He can feel his retort rising like bile in his throat, and he's powerless to swallow it back.

"He was my _best friend_, Harry. You don't just -"

No.

John gives a tight shake of his head and looks away.

Harry opens her mouth to say something, but she's cut short by the whistle of the kettle and hurries to the kitchen. John feels himself lose a little more of his footing; it was a terrible idea, coming here. All the things he's held at bay since Sherlock's death - all the things he couldn't tell Ella - threaten to overwhelm him, cornering him like a feral beast.

Harry returns, places a cup of tea before John, and sits on the sofa next to him, waiting.

After a moment, John asks abruptly, "Have you ever had a best friend, Harry?"

"Clara," she says, not missing a beat, and John nods knowingly.

"And how did you feel when -" another stubborn shake of his head.

No.

But Harry reaches out and places a tentative hand on John's knee. "How did I feel when what?" she asks with a frown. "I don't understand."

"When," John says. "When you thought she was gone."

"Gutted," she answers. "But that's different. She's -"

And maybe Harry would finish that thought - tell John that Clara is the whole world to her, that she can't imagine life without her, that she'd do anything, _has_ done _everything_, for her - but when she looks up into John's hollow stare, it's clear that it's no different at all.

"John… " she says softly, her eyes widening.

"Nope," he says with an insistent shake of his head. "No."

He blinks once, twice and again in rapid succession.

"Oh, Johnny, you poor sod," Harry says, and John curls into her, clutching at her shirt with both hands and burying his face in her shoulder.

She brings her arms around him and lets him silently shake.

_London, May 2013_

John rolls onto his back and tucks an arm under his head, his eyes wide open long after Mary's drifted off to sleep beside him. The delicious lassitude that comes after orgasm has escaped him completely tonight, lost in an avalanche of jumbled thoughts.

By any definition, they've had a lovely weekend away - charming bed and breakfast, cosy restaurants, long walks steeped in history. They've stopped to admire the offerings in small shops, paused to take photographs amongst the spring wild flowers, held hands down quiet paths.

They've slept together for the first time and that, too, is lovely. Mary is deceptively imaginative in bed; she exudes a quiet competence in her day-to-day affairs - practical, in the way his mum always was, and John had wondered if that would translate to a certain efficiency in the bedroom. But before they've even made it to bed she's doing things with her hands - with her mouth - that he hasn't felt in ages, and it's good, so bloody good that he reciprocates in kind, trailing hands over soft skin and tongue over velvet folds until she's pulling at his hair and coming in his mouth. Her body is warm and welcoming and he sinks into it with a sigh, and in that moment she's beautiful and it's _perfect_.

But the thing is, John doesn't believe in perfect any more.

He had once, and aspired to it: perfect son, perfect physician, perfect soldier. Steady hand and steadfast heart, good in a crisis. He'd even fancied himself the perfect friend, especially for a misanthrope like Sherlock - always ready to intercept, to translate. He'd _managed_ Sherlock - perfectly - but since his death John's come to realise that he was no perfect friend - and that Sherlock had not only known, but counted on it.

_"You machine."_

It's a memory that surfaces from time to time - a question he can't answer: what would have happened if John had stayed? If he'd believed the evidence of his own eyes and not a judgement born of his own insecurities and fears? Because, with a clarity that comes only in hindsight, that's what John thinks it was. Sherlock, scared in a way that John had never seen him before; himself, unmoored and looking for anything - _any_ truth - to cling to, and when it came in the form of an old prejudice, long since dispelled by observation, he'd grabbed it with both hands.

Now, looking at Mary and recalling the moments that followed that earlier, perfect one, John wonders what else he may be overlooking - or wilfully ignoring. In those few minutes between orgasm and sleep she'd lain next to him stroking the fine hair on his arm, waiting... for what, John can't say. Something he'd been unwilling to give - a kiss, an embrace. Words of love that wouldn't come; and when they hadn't, she'd given a small, dissatisfied sigh and turned on her side, pulling the sheet over her bare shoulders. He'd listened as her uneven breaths mellowed to a more regular beat, and still he left her alone.

John feels no urge to wrap himself around Mary, no drive to smooth her hair or touch her skin, and it occurs to him, lying there, that he wants to want her so much more than he really does. She should be more than just a means to his happy ending, but that's how it feels. John's thoughts drift back to Sherlock, his memory now faded to a bitter-sweet reminiscence that only rarely flares fresh with pain; and there in the dark John allows himself the furtive indulgence of reliving the exhilaration of the chase, the cosy, comfortable warmth of 221B, the sheer _joy_ of being with his friend.

And it hits him, with a sudden, soul-shattering certainty that takes his breath away, that not only does Mary deserve so much better, but so does he.

_London, July 2013_

It's the kind of day John likes best - cloudy and dry and cool enough to be refreshing in the absence of an autumnal bite. He's just stepped out for a bit of air between patients - a brisk walk around the block before the Friday afternoon rush.

John turns left down a quiet lane, lost in thought. He's gone only a dozen or so feet when he sees, out of the corner of his eye, the sleek black bonnet of a Jaguar pulling up slowly alongside him. He stills, jaw clenched and eyes fixed straight ahead, listening for the click of an opening door and the soft clap of expensive shoes on pavement. His fists tighten when he hears it, and he takes a step forward. Another. One foot in front of the other, taking him away. The footsteps behind him quicken; a hand falls lightly on his shoulder, holding him back.

"_No_," John growls softly, wrenching away.

"Please," comes a voice that's as regretful as the last time John heard it. "Doctor, please - I must speak with you."

John's jaw tightens. "I've said everything I will ever have to say to you."

"John."

The word is broken, almost imperceptibly, and he turns to find a face he's never seen before. Purpling bruise encircling one eye, and a long, thin cut – perhaps a few hours old - along the right cheek. Dishevelled hair and a wildness in his eyes that's the opposite of everything John's come to associate with Mycroft Holmes.

John stares at him in frozen silence for a long moment, then eventually asks with a bitter wince of a smile, "What can you possibly have to say to me?"

"Please, John, come with me," Mycroft says. "It's a matter of vital importance."

He reaches out to take John's arm, but John snatches it away and takes a step back.

"No," he says. "Tell me what's going on."

Mycroft blinks, then casts a shrewd glance around them and leans in close to murmur in John's ear, "He's alive, and he needs you."

* * *

"I've taken the liberty of arranging a leave of absence."

This is the first thing Mycroft's said that's penetrated the haze of confusion and bewilderment clouding John's mind since he climbed into the car. He has no recollection of how he got here, and over the past half hour only smatterings of Mycroft's haughty monologue have been at all intelligible to him.

"I'm sorry, what?" John says. "You can't do that."

Mycroft looks over to John with raised eyebrow.

"I can, and I have."

Silence seeps into the space between them until John dissipates it with a quiet question.

"What's wrong? With… him?"

A frown flits across Mycroft's face. Were he able to concentrate on more than the most basic of information, John might note the singular concern in Mycroft's eyes, born of something more than just his usual meddlesome ways.

"Grazed by a bullet in the arm - a superficial wound, but one which requires attention."

"You don't need me for that."

"No," Mycroft agrees. "He also has significant swelling on the right knee and difficulty walking. As he remains, for all intents and purposes, dead in the eyes of the world, he has not yet been seen by a physician."

John gives a non-committal hum, but there's a thought nagging at the back of his mind, clamouring for his attention. "That's still not all, is it?"

Mycroft's carefully controlled façade cracks, if only for a moment. "He… " he begins uncertainly, then looks at John, fixing him with his gaze. "I'm afraid he'll disappear again, when I've only just found him."

"He… " John echoes. He blinks once, twice, then pinches the bridge of his nose with a tight squint and asks, businesslike, "What happened?"

"A confrontation - one that's been coming for some time now, although I was myself apprised of it only yesterday. As you can see -" he points to his lacerated face "- I was caught in the crossfire."

"So," John says, his sluggish mind finally catching up with the implications of Mycroft's words. "You knew. You… _knew_, all this time, and you kept it from me."

Mycroft glances at John, then looks away, out the window.

"I knew," he confirms. "But it was imperative that you believed Sherlock dead."

And there's the fog again, numbing the jagged edges of John's anger. He has an urge to hit Mycroft - hard, and in the face - but it's vague and slips further away with each shaky breath he takes, until he can only respond, "I don't understand."

Mycroft gives John a slight smile that might be mistaken for condescension, were it not for the strange gentleness in his eyes.

"I think it best that you hear it from him. Simply put, it's not my story to tell."

Not long after, the sound of gravel crunching under tyres signals their arrival. John peers out the window to find a surprisingly modest country house nestled against a hilly embankment, and his heart clenches uncomfortably.

"Has he asked for me?" John says, quiet and controlled.

Mycroft sighs. "He doesn't know I've sought you out. I left him sleeping after administering a powerful analgesic, but I dare say he's awake by now."

"Why me?" John can only whisper the words; any louder and other, inconvenient things will escape with them.

Mycroft replies almost mournfully.

"He needs you."

The car comes to a stop. Mycroft climbs out as John, white fingers gripping the soft leather on which he sits, takes a deep breath and tries to quell a thousand warring emotions. After a moment, Mycroft bends down to peer inside the open door.

"Doctor?" he says; then, softly, "Please."

John closes his eyes, then gives a curt nod and slides over to the door. They climb the stone steps and enter the house together. The sound of the heavy wood door shutting is followed closely by a shatter of porcelain from above, and Mycroft briskly heads up the staircase with John slowly ascending behind him.

"Where the hell have you been?"

The voice - _his_ voice - coming from a room at the top of the stairs brings John to a halt, nearly brings him to his knees. It takes everything, everything John has not to run, though towards the room or away from it he cannot say. He doesn't understand what's happening, just grips the bannister and waits for the choking black fog to pass. Mycroft casts a glance over his shoulder from where he stands, a silent question in his arched eyebrow, and John steadies himself. When he thinks he can move again he gives Mycroft a nod.

Mycroft enters Sherlock's room, observing loftily, "You are in need of medical attention, and I am just returned from seeking it."

"No!" Sherlock exclaims, an unfamiliar note of panic in his voice. "You can't - it's not safe yet, not until we know for sure -"

And John, now standing in the doorway, sees only Sherlock.

Sherlock freezes; his mouth drops open - eyes grow wide. "John… " he whispers.

Mycroft, glancing from one to the other, offers a deferential little bow, then exits the room.

And there they are, mere feet from one another but miles from what they had once been. John has no idea what to say - no words that even begin to express the feelings that threaten to overwhelm him; and when Sherlock (too thin by half) swallows and stammers, low and hoarse, "John, I -" John cuts him off with a steely, soft-spoken, "Let's have a look at that knee, then."

They stare silently at one another for a long moment, John silently willing Sherlock to _let it be_ for now. Then Sherlock blinks, glances down at his leg, and says with raised eyebrow and a composure belied by the paleness of his face, "Yes, that's probably a good idea."

_Hertfordshire, July 2013_

Diagnosis: meniscal tear, moderate  
Treatment, short term: bed rest and elevation of the leg until swelling subsides. Administer acetaminophen as needed  
Treatment, long term: physical therapy and use of assistive device as needed

John has spoken barely ten words to Sherlock in the past two days. He avoids meeting the eyes that follow his every move - now distant, now doleful - and he keeps his thoughts under lock and key, safely hidden not only from Sherlock but also himself. There's a maelstrom of responses to Sherlock's resurrection lurking just beneath John's placid surface, and he knows that one word, one look, one untoward touch and he'll be helpless to stave off their onslaught.

But on the third night in Mycroft's home, John startles awake with a pounding heart and the certainty - the absolute certainty - that Sherlock is dead.

He throws off the duvet and stands, disoriented in the darkness, then quietly makes his way to the room two doors down from his. John finds Sherlock lying on the bed in a T-shirt and cotton pyjama bottoms, one hand spread listlessly over his chest, his blank stare illuminated in the diffused light of a waning moon. He's as pale as he was on that June day, and John unthinkingly reaches out as he did then to grasp Sherlock's wrist in his hand. This time it's warm and thrums with a pulse that's probably too rapid, but John doesn't care. It's _alive_, and that other hand wasn't - the right response to a desperate question answered so wrongly before.

And John doesn't understand but he needs to, now, so he asks in a voice soft with sleep, "How did you do it?"

Sherlock's eyelids drop and his chest collapses on a sigh.

"Switched the body," he murmurs, low, and the blood drains from John's face, like the suck of the tide before a devastating wave. He drops heavily to the edge of the bed.

"How?" he growls. Sherlock turns his head and - finally - their eyes meet.

"Does it matter?"

Once, all the details had mattered. The minutiae of Sherlock's deductions and schemes had always been so endlessly fascinating to John that he's almost surprised to hear himself say, "I suppose it doesn't." But he feels Sherlock's eyes on him as he works through a deduction of his own, and he cannot help the small rush of fury that accompanies the solution when it comes.

"Molly," John says accusingly, and Sherlock nods.

"Was I the only one, then?" he demands. "Who didn't know? Seems pretty elaborate just to pull one over on me."

Only now does John realize he's gripping Sherlock's wrist hard enough to bruise; he drops it, abruptly stands, and crosses to the tall windows that overlook Mycroft's property. A rustle of bedding and the metallic clack of Sherlock's cane tell John he's got to his feet, but John keeps his arms crossed tightly over his chest and his eyes fixed on the grey-green grounds below.

"Not just you," Sherlock says from behind. "Mrs. Hudson. Lestrade. Everyone but Mycroft and Molly," John turns to see him nearly lost in shadows, leaning heavily on his cane and small in a way he's never seen Sherlock before.

"Why? What -" John swallows. "Sherlock, why didn't you tell me?"

Sherlock is quiet; after a moment's consideration, he says, simply, "Moriarty."

John tilts his head in confusion, as though the movement will bring him somehow closer to comprehension, and Sherlock shifts unsteadily on his feet.

"'I'll burn the heart out of you'," Sherlock recites, and John nods.

"Your name, your reputation - I remember. But you sent me away, Sherlock. You made me think - I could have helped. I thought we had a plan -"

Sherlock looks away. "It wasn't my 'reputation'."

"Then what -" John starts, and Sherlock limps into the light, locking eyes with him. There's desperation there, and pain. Worry… fear and concern, all trained on John, and the force of it hits him like a shot.

"_Oh_," he exhales, taking a step back. "Oh… God."

"Three guns, three bullets - Mrs. Hudson. Lestrade." Sherlock's eyes glitter strangely. "You."

"Sherlock… "

"He would have -" Sherlock begins, grunting with the effort of lowering himself back to the bed when he's no longer able to stand. John joins him after a moment's hesitation, and the two of them sit side by side, staring ahead into the darkness.

"If you'd known," Sherlock starts again with a swallow, enunciating each word carefully and only wavering on the last. "If you'd so much as hinted that I hadn't died, it wouldn't have been me, it would have been you. They'd have come for you."

"They... ?"

"Moriarty's network."

_Right_, John thinks. He'd learnt that Moriarty wasn't acting alone when he'd been abducted, and now, like so many times before, he mentally kicks himself for not having seen what was right before him. John replays the moments outside St. Bart's in his mind, hearing anew Sherlock's odd insistence that John keep his eyes on him, understanding only now the cyclist who knocked him down just as he was racing to get to his friend. It all makes sense, and all of it makes him feel like a fool.

Yet, there's a dawning implication in Sherlock's words, and if John isn't at all sure how that makes him feel, he at least knows it's not entirely unpleasant.

"So… " he says slowly, treading carefully through a minefield of conflicting emotions. "You were... protecting your heart."

A pause, then Sherlock nods, not meeting his eyes.

"And mine." John is desperate to swallow, but his throat is dry and the words come out rough. "Mine was just collateral damage."

John senses, more than sees, the way Sherlock's eyes widen; hears, or maybe just imagines, his soft intake of breath.

They sit for minutes more, John's hands clenched tightly on his knees, until finally he breaks the silence in a tone as stiff as his stance.

"Mycroft said he was afraid you'd bolt. I don't know what's gone on between the two of you, but -" John turns his head to face the other man. "Are you? Leaving again?"

Sherlock drags his eyes up to meet John's. Suspicion masks a kind of vulnerability that, for just an instant, makes John want to reach out and take Sherlock's hand, grasp it tightly in his own and maybe even bring it to his lips in both plea and promise.

He does none of these things; eventually, Sherlock answers, "No."

* * *

Their midnight tête-à-tête does little to mend the fissure that's grown wide and deep between them. If anything, the sight of Sherlock daily dredges up a wellspring of grief that John had thought long since capped, and he can't help blaming Sherlock for it - for the ceaseless ache and emptiness, for coming back and making a farce of it all.

They haunt the house during the long weeks of Sherlock's convalescence, speaking not in words, but in a dissonant dance of unmet eyes and retracted hands. The social niceties are observed, but each "good morning" is a test that "good night" has failed until John despairs of ever overcoming the stalemate that divides them. In the end, it's breached not by frontal assault, but guerilla stealth: John glancing out the window as he crosses his room to see Sherlock stumble on the gravelled garden path outside. Mycroft beside his brother, catching him as he falls; and then, after a wild-eyed beat, pulling him close. A random moment of deceptive ordinariness, but John knows a reconciliation when he sees it.

He looks a moment longer, only to see Sherlock close his eyes and lay his head on Mycroft's shoulder. John's heart catches on a shallow breath with the impossibility of the thing, and for the rest of the day he plays the moment over on an infinite loop, trying to puzzle out what could possibly have happened to Sherlock that he would allow it.

And when, the next morning, they come together for breakfast, John clears his throat and gestures toward the newspaper in Sherlock's hands with his coffee cup.

"Three missing, and the Yard don't seem to have a clue." He drinks, shaking his head as he says, "Dreadful business."

Sherlock looks up at John over the top of the paper with wary, weary eyes, and John smiles - the tight, knowing one that concedes just enough without giving anything gratuitous away. He knows that this is the one Sherlock will believe; a look that says all is forgiven, if not quite forgotten. Sherlock glances down and scans the text, more for show than anything, then shrugs in that nonchalant way that John's always rather liked.

"They're idiots," he says loftily, and John nods.

The silence that falls between them lasts a beat too long, broken only by the quiet gravity of John's words.

"Never again, Sherlock."

"No," Sherlock agrees softly.

_London, September 2013_

Sherlock stares out the window of the car instead of meeting John's eyes.

"I'll need a moment alone with Mrs. Hudson," he says as they pull up in front of 221B, already climbing out before the car's come to a complete stop. John lets out a quiet sigh at the sight of Sherlock's coat-clad silhouette disappearing through the door, then he slides across the leather seat to exit onto the side walk, taking his time to collect their few belongings from the boot.

After a few minutes standing outside in the chill of a late September dusk, John shoulders their bags and lumbers inside. He'd relinquished his key when he moved out so many months ago, so he drops the bags to the hallway floor and leans against the wall opposite Mrs. Hudson's flat, listening for any indication that it might be safe to enter. Once the sound of Mrs. Hudson's gentle admonishments reaches John's ears, he slips over to her door and quietly opens it to look inside.

John knows, better than most, the soft spot his friend has for their erstwhile landlady, but even so he's startled by the picture that greets him: Sherlock on both knees before a seated Mrs. Hudson, arms wrapped around her waist and face hidden against her shoulder. She sits stroking his hair, glances up when John peeks in and gives him a discreet shake of her head. John withdraws with an answering nod, but his thoughts snag on the sight of Sherlock's curls under Mrs. Hudson's fingertips, rising up rebelliously where she's flattened them down. That image is met later by more: Sherlock's coat beneath Mycroft's tightly clenched hands; his forearm in Lestrade's disbelieving grasp when it comes a few days later. Sherlock accepting them in a way he never would have before.

John and Sherlock don't touch.

Nor do they enjoy the quiet camaraderie of an evening the way they once had, and without it 221B is awkward and unfamiliar. John worries they've destroyed something irreplaceable, born in the space of a forgotten cane and a shot in the dark, lost somewhere between roof and pavement. He still sees the void Sherlock left everywhere he looks; the warm memories attached to every last object in the flat mock his mourning, and there's no resurrection here - only the dusty, decaying corpses of a past life.

But one day, grey with a cosy, autumnal gloom that makes the leaves of the trees on Baker Street glow with banked fire, as John absently reaches across the table by the windows for one of the biscuits Mrs. Hudson's left for them, his fingers meet a warmth not his own. He looks up into Sherlock's startled eyes, and it would be nothing, mean _nothing_, but for the faint pink that stains Sherlock's cheeks.

"Sorry," John mumbles, clearing his throat and quickly retracting his hand. Sherlock stares, then returns his eyes to his laptop… but for the rest of the afternoon John feels them making surreptitious forays over his face, his hands, hair and body, until there's a part of him, burrowed so deep in his heart he can scarcely own it, that wonders if maybe they haven't got a few - new - memories left in them yet.

The next day brings a case, the first they've had since Sherlock's return, and in his excitement Sherlock hustles John into his jacket - prods him gently on the back to get him moving out the door. And if a stray fingertip happens to make contact with the bare skin of John's nape as Sherlock places the jacket on his shoulders, if the palm of his hand lingers on John's back a second too long, neither seems to notice. After all, Sherlock is always a bit breathless at the beginning of a case, and John's pulse always thrums in anticipation of the chase.

For a long time after that, it's always the same: one haphazard brush of Sherlock's fingers after another, stealthily investigating John. Without forethought or intention, John takes to leaving bits of himself exposed - wrist becomes forearm when he rolls up his sleeves, the calves under his bathrobe an open invitation when stretched out from sofa to table - and Sherlock answers with nudges and pats and grazes that leave them both wide-eyed and confused and aching for more. Life returns slowly to some semblance of normal, and with each new case, John and Sherlock slip further into old patterns and routines. But the things left unsaid are a distracting din that leaves Sherlock fidgety and tense, and John short-tempered and silent by turns.

As always, they travel the city in a dark parade of taxicabs, each carefully keeping to his own plot of seat until one night, bruised and euphoric from a case solved at last, Sherlock uncharacteristically flops into the back seat and loosely unfolds his long limbs. His knee comes to rest against the denim of John's thigh, and John, unseeing eyes trained on the window as all his attention is arrested to the spot, relaxes into it rather than recoiling away. It's an answer to a question that no one has asked, too polite to satisfy.

_London, December 2013_

A thief, a cat, and a consulting detective run into a park.

John wants to begin his inevitable blog post about the case with these words so much it hurts. Or maybe the pain comes from the fact that he's clutching a cramp in his side, doubled over in laughter at the sight of Sherlock sitting on wet grass, legs bent and elbows resting on his knees, looking utterly, irretrievably offended by the whole thing. Donovan, who calls him by the less antagonistic 'nutter' these days, smirks as she handcuffs said thief and leads him away; Lestrade just grins - when he isn't wincing at the evidence-bearing cat's attempts to escape his clutches. But the sight of mud dripping from hair to cheek contrasts so starkly with Sherlock's haughty mortification that John cannot keep a straight face, and the way Sherlock glares at him from under thunderous brow only makes him laugh harder.

"When you're done amusing yourself, would you mind helping me out of this muck?" Sherlock mutters. John wipes a stray tear or two from his eyes, bracing his hands on his knees as he catches his breath.

"Sorry. I'm sorry," John gasps. "It's just -"

Barely restrained laughter threatens in the sparkle of John's eyes, and Sherlock rolls his own in response.

"Yes, yes, it's all very funny," Sherlock grumbles, holding out a cold, bare hand that's lately been full of cat. "Help me up."

John walks over and takes Sherlock's outstretched hand in his own.

There will come a day in the not-too-distant future when John looks back and wonders where the violins were, for all that it was such a bloody cliché. But as their hands lock together like missing pieces of a puzzle, John _knows_, with a certainty he's never felt for another person before. He knows; but he's not ready, not yet, and so he pulls Sherlock to his feet, and (_oh god_) now they're standing too close, Sherlock weaving slightly as his lips part in a gentle "O," the steam of their breath commingling between them.

Then John drops Sherlock's hand and clears his throat, taking a step back to nod in the direction of Sherlock's mud-spattered Belstaff.

"You'll, um, want to get that to the, uh, laundry," he says, and Sherlock tears his eyes away from John to look down at himself.

"It's nothing," he replies absently. "I've got far worse out -"

Sherlock glances up at John, and the blood drains from his face at the sight of John's horrified expression. John says nothing, only reaches out, takes Sherlock's wrist in an almost crushing grip, and pulls him close, wrapping his arms fiercely around his friend. _Now_ he knows - how Sherlock's coat feels under his hands, what it's like to be enfolded in Sherlock's embrace.

And for a long moment it's friendship - until it isn't. Until John feels Sherlock's lips lightly graze his hair and, instead of pulling away, he chooses to lift his face and close his eyes and nuzzle Sherlock's cheek against his own.

Sherlock stills… then gingerly touches his fingertips to the other side of John's face, drawing out of John a sound somewhere between a groan and a sigh. He turns his face towards Sherlock's, dragging his nose over Sherlock's jaw, his chin, blindly exploring his skin with no intent other than to _know_, more, and then more. And Sherlock, always the more purposeful of the two, bends his head, brings his mouth to John's - a brush, a coaxing nip, and John's lips are parting, gently sucking, dragging Sherlock down and down and down.

Somewhere off in the distance, John hears a faint cough. He reluctantly cracks an eye open to find Lestrade rocking on his heels and looking pointedly up at the sky.

"I think we're being watched," John murmurs in Sherlock's ear, close enough that Sherlock gives an involuntary shudder. They break apart and look away, but John keeps hold of Sherlock's uncovered hand as they trudge across the grass, Sherlock's eyes unwaveringly fixed on the road ahead. As they pass the police, John gives Greg a quick nod, blushing furiously when Donovan, standing next to Lestrade with a wry smile, gestures that John's got something on his face.

With his usual unerring luck, Sherlock manages to hail a cab almost immediately. They pass the ride home with their fingers entwined on the seat between them, yet neither says a word. For his part, John has no second thoughts - about what's happened, about what may happen yet. With hindsight comes an awareness of what he's been pushing away for weeks - possibly months and maybe even years. It's very nearly anticlimactic; the romance happened long ago, when Sherlock whirled into his life, trailing chaos in his wake and reviving John's faltering heart with it. But John thinks he rather prefers this part. Not a brightly coloured happily-ever-after, their relationship has a complexity lent it by exhilaration and emptiness and every conceivable emotion in-between, and it's left him utterly besotted with a man he'll never see as perfect, never cease to be surprised by, never want to be parted from again.

The cab arrives at 221B, and John climbs out as Sherlock pays the cabbie. He's waiting just inside, back to the door, when Sherlock sweeps in, and Sherlock stills at the sight, drawing up quietly behind him.

"There," John says into the silence with a nod. "That's where Mrs. Hudson was, where _I_ was, when I realised you'd sent me away."

Sherlock swallows. "John, I -" he says, but John's already walking away, ahead, to the staircase. He takes the first stair, then turns to face Sherlock with shining eyes.

"And there -"

John points to the wall on his right, and Sherlock's eyes follow. John takes a deep breath, but his voice wavers nonetheless.

"That's where you saved me. Where you gave me back my life."

Sherlock steps close to the wall and splays his left hand over the textured wallpaper.

"Here," he says, low, staring at his hand. "Here. I -" Sherlock gives a frustrated shake of his head. "You. It was the same for me."

"And now?" John asks with a smile in his voice.

Sherlock looks up at him; takes one step, two, and then he's standing in front of John - searching his face and finding something there that makes him nod solemnly.

"The same."

John, not quite as tall as Sherlock even on the step, reaches out and cups Sherlock's face in his hand. Sherlock's eyes close as he leans into it, John's thumb smudging dried mud over that beautiful cheekbone he's always loved. Then Sherlock takes John's hand in his own and kisses the palm reverently, sending a wild frisson of desire surging through John. He wraps his other hand around Sherlock's nape and pulls him close, brings his lips, his tongue to Sherlock's, exploring, tasting, devouring him until breathing, that irritating necessity, forces them apart. They press close, forehead to forehead, panting until the pants become giggles, the giggles laughs, and they're both hanging off one another, gasping and wiping tears from their eyes.

And after they've calmed, before the moment becomes strange, John nudges Sherlock with his shoulder.

"So," he says. "Turns out you _do_ have a heart after all, you great git."

Colour blooms on Sherlocks cheeks, but he only gives a noncommittal "Mmm," in response, ducking his head for another, chaste kiss. Then he straightens, tilting his head in thought before pinning John with a gimlet eye.

"And _you_," he says in the triumphant tone he usually reserves for his deductions. "You _are_ attracted to me."

John gives a soft snort.

"Yeah," he replies with an easy grin that belies his anticipation of things to come. "I suppose I am."

Coda

_London, December 2002_

Another tiresome night spent out on the streets, but what else has he to do? Mycroft, the prat, has told him, "in no uncertain terms," that he's to be back no later than ten o'clock, and that's rubbish. He'll do what he likes, and what he likes is to impress the masses with his feats of deduction. It's wasted on this lot, of course; he can see right through the grasping desperation of lipstick and mascara, short skirts and tight blouses, and he knows that to them he's little more than an amusing boy with a few stunts up his sleeve. But while it leaves him cold, there's a part of him that soaks up the squeals of delight the girls give as he deduces that the bartender owes fifty quid to his bookie; that the girl in the corner with the furtive eyes is having an affair with her married professor; that the plumpish bloke in the checked shirt comes from Manchester and is studying to be a doctor.

They clap and giggle as Sherlock takes a sip of water and a long drag of his cigarette. He's just about to move on to his next hapless victim when he notices the friend of the fat fellow looking at him: an ordinary sort - plain in his jumper and corduroy trousers, hair the colour of ripened wheat - but he _sees_ Sherlock in a way that people who aren't Mycroft seldom seem to do. There's a flash of appreciation in his eyes, and it holds Sherlock's attention for an arresting moment, broken only when he laughs - not in mockery, but Sherlock's eyes narrow all the same and he drops his gaze.

In that instant, it hits Sherlock how cheap and pointless this game he plays really is. He can be better, _wants_ to be better for someone like that, who might care for what he keeps so carefully hidden behind his bravado. Someone who might understand that there's something more to him than mere parlour tricks.

And when, years later, they finally come face to face again, Sherlock will know that it was John Watson who saw him that night - that it will always be John Watson who sees him - and he'll surrender a bit of his heart to John's keeping, quite unbeknownst to himself.

**The End**


End file.
